New camera sensors are all the rage recently – first rumors of HTC’s new sensor design (new for phones anyway), and now Panasonic’s plans for a completely new sensor architecture based on the wave properties of light.

Panasonic’s design drops the standard Bayer filter for micro color splitters – instead of filtering light by colors, these splitters use diffraction to sort out colors, which reduces losses (a Bayer filter would block 50%-70% of the light before it hits the sensor).

Unlike the rumored HTC plans (which are similar to the Foveon X3 sensor), Panasonic’s micro color splitters work with traditional sensors (both CCD and CMOS), so they can simply replace current Bayer filters and improve camera performance. This means there should be no major hurdles getting this design to mobile phone cameras.